From: Jan, <A HREF="mailto:[email protected]">[email protected]</A> The Overlooked Treasures within a Family (from the Sunday Afternoon Rocking series) The bold headlines of a newspaper are tantalizing and suggest to us that we might be "next". One often hears of "serendipity" in regard to treasures. Someone cleans an attic to discover a priceless collectible. Someone will make a wonderful find at a yard sale, and give pennies for something worth thousands of dollars. A vase that sat for all of one's life upon the mantle at Great Aunt Matilda's home turns out to be a rare antique. A picture removed from a frame reveals a hidden masterpiece. Again and again, we read and hear about the idea that treasures may be right under our very nose, and we taking our treasures too much for granted to recognize them for what they are. My mother cried tonight. She cried more than once. She cried tears because she was touched at the deepest part of her, and she cried tears because her laughter brought them on. She cried because of the power of another's memories, and she cried because of the power of her own. The stories had lain dormant for over forty years, at least for those outside of the vessel they were stored in. For that vessel, a cousin, the stories had been cherished, held tightly, and contributed to the man he became. For all that we have known him as a good man, I doubt many of the family realized what a treasure he held within until a series of unexpected happenings brought the stories gushing forth, willing to be shared. I have known my first cousin Bruce all my life, and not known him either. That is, I saw him on occasion and every time I did, I liked him and was proud to call him cousin. But I did not know him. For that, we can thank the world of technology and being able to get to know one another on e-mail. Odd how something so modern managed to tap the very tradition we both so admire. I fairly quickly learned how completely we were "kicked by the same ancestral mule". The love of tradition and the past and family elders came to us both naturally. I suspect we can thank the family genes and our common ancestors for those mutual loves. But it seems my role as the family storyteller better be taking a back seat; for cousin Bruce is far more windy than I am and can flat tell a good story. Moreover, his words can bring on a powerful lot of emotions within a few paragraphs. It began when I asked Bruce to tell me stories of a side of my family about whom I knew very little. Oh, I had the names, and I had the dates. I had the places. I had the proofs, and I even had photographs and wisps of memories. But I did not know this side of my family intimately. I could not picture a face without the aid of a photograph. I could not hear in some part of me a long ago voice. I could not paint a picture of a place in my mind, could not "feel" a personality, and I did not feel as if I "knew" these people. In short, though they lived in my time, many of them, I had lost the chance for that sort of legacy. Bruce had not. When I shared my pain at that loss, he offered to share his own memories. He warned me that he typed with one finger, he warned me that spelling might get in the way, he warned me that his keyboard had a habit of moving around on him. He warned me he had never tried to write a story. It did not matter. I was starved for the stories, and he was kind enough to take the time to give them. What began as a few stories turned into many, and before we quite realized what had happened, it was obvious that what this very quiet cousin of mine had done was to add substance to wisps of memories, to add flesh and blood to the bare bones of memories. What he had managed to do was make them live again, not only for me, but for all of the members of the family who either, like me had lost a possible legacy living in the time it was lived, or like the younger generations, had no chance to know the legacy. His stories became a gift to a family this holiday season. His memories became a bound book, to be shared with all of the members of a family. It will be shared with the older generations who well remembered the people and places he spoke of, and it will tap those memories and make them live again. It will be shared with those of our own generation who might remember or perhaps, like me, sadly did not. And it will be shared with those of a younger generation who had never had the chance to know. I daresay it will be kept, passed on and someday be shared with generations yet unborn. No doubt this Christmas many family members are going to be surprised, as I was. Even as the author of the stories was. He had no idea so much was stored within, bursting to be shared, to be remembered. For him this was a catharsis of sorts, a reliving of the past, and I have no doubt he lived a range of emotions as he told the stories, funny ones, sad ones. I have no doubt because that is the way they affect the reader. I chuckled merrily over his stories arriving daily in my mailbox, and many days I cried…but good strong tears, the kind that make one glad of a heart, and glad of memories to touch that heart. Tonight I gave Bruce's gift to my Mama…and I watched her play out the same range of emotions I had gone through. She cried more than once. She cried tears because she was touched at the deepest part of her, and she cried tears because her laughter brought them on. She cried because of the power of another's memories, and she cried because of the power of her own. Bruce is a quiet man, good hearted, loyal to his family. I believe he would have been happiest had he been born to the world of a hundred or more years ago. He has that sort of old fashioned aura about him, and his choices for living would fit better in the world of a great great grandfather than they do in the hectic bustling society of today. He would be the first to say so, too. He does nothing to draw attention to himself, and he lives quite simply. Nothing about him would suggest to anyone that so much was hidden in his heart, that a virtual tome of stories were cloistered inside that quiet exterior. Nothing would suggest the richness of the treasures he remembered and turned to as he grew into a man, as he decided what sort of man he would become. Yet, he alone, of all of us of this generation, had clasped the stories of that family to his heart, had taken the time to know the people are a part of those stories. And through those years that he was taking time to know them, he was watching and listening. He was in short, being molded by those years, and by that family. And he was storing up memories. Those stories are priceless now, and they will be even more priceless to a family with each passing year. He has managed to breathe life into the past, and he has, with his stories now on paper, given each member of the family an heirloom to pass on, a legacy that will never again be simply the collection of names, dates, places in a family tree. Newspapers will never announce in bold headlines the "serendipity" of the treasure this family will receive this Christmas. Newspaper headlines tend to tantalize readers with stories of rare finds only when those can be measured in monetary terms. Yet, I think what we found is far more valuable. How many of us, if we only stopped to take the time to talk, to ask, to get to know an "unlikely someone" in our families, might find that treasures may be right under our very nose, and we taking our treasures too much for granted to recognize them for what they are? And how many of us, if we only took time to think, are holding a treasure of memories inside of us that could live after us and make a legacy for our families to come, if only we would take the time to write them down? Just a thought, jan Copyright ©2001, 2000JanPhilpot ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ (Note: Afternoon Rocking messages are meant to be passed on, meant to be shared...simply share though e-mail as written without alterations...and in entirety. If planned for a publication, permission must be granted by the author. Please forward sufficient information concerning the nature and intent of the publication. Thanks, jan) Sunday Afternoon Rocking columns are distributed weekly on the list Sunday Rocking. This is not a "reply to" list, and normally only one message per week will come across it, that being the column. To subscribe send email to [email protected] Comments about the content of these messages can be sent to [email protected] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~